


The best way for Captain America to use his backpay

by marykathryn30



Series: Short Something's [6]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Cute, Domestic Boyfriends, Fluff, M/M, Pepper Potts Is a Good Bro, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Reference to the '40s, Steve forgets but makes up for it, Valentine's Day Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-30 20:33:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17835704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marykathryn30/pseuds/marykathryn30
Summary: Steve likes to spend every day spoiling his somewhat obnoxious, mildly sporadic boyfriend.So it makes perfect sense he'd forgot to spoil him on Valentines day, of all days.





	The best way for Captain America to use his backpay

**Author's Note:**

> Just some Stucky fluff because I'd rather write Steve Rogers making a fool of himself than sleep

Steve was, well, he was a fucking idiot.

In his defense, his brain had been working at a solid 65% since he’d woken up to Bucky’s thighs on either side of his, staring down at him with a hot kind of focus while he lined Steve up and rode him like a horse until they were both sweaty and splattered with come.

And then Bucky had just walked to the bathroom connected to their bedroom, his bare ass and the dimples at the small of his back on full display while he stretched and preened in the mirror.

“Got me pretty good last night, Stevie,” he said casually, rising to his tiptoes and spreading his cheeks to better inspect the beard burn tingling there; Steve tried not to swallow his tongue at the trickle of come dribbling from Bucky’s sweet little hole.

“Mhmm.” Eloquent, Steve.

Bucky didn’t seem to mind, though, pulling his hair out of it’s messy bun and starting the shower. He checked the temperature a couple times, humming under his breath- some song he’d picked up from the radio, Ed Sheeran, Steve thought- before climbing in so Steve could watch the shadow of his body through the foggy glass. Eventually, lavender scented steam started drifting into the bedroom, cloudy billows calling for Steve to cancel his run with Sam, again, and spend the day showering Bucky in every way possible. He glanced at his phone, breathing a sigh of relief at Sam cancelling on him this time, before his entire body froze.

_Sam Wilson:_

_Gotta skip the run today, man. Taking my niece out for Valentines brunch cause I’m a cute ass uncle and that waitress at Donahue's definitely wants my number._

**Valentines brunch.** **_Today was Valentine's day and he’d completely forgotten._ **

Not just Valentine’s day, no, the first one since Bucky had been back. The first one they could spend publically instead of crammed in their matchbox apartment swallowing cheap whiskey with qualms about loneliness and the general unfair state of the romantic society. The first one since they’d found each other again.

And Steve. Forgot.

Distantly, he heard the shower shut off and the obnoxious whir of Bucky’s $300 hair dryer start up. “ _It’s got the right range of temps, Stevie,”_ he’d said, blinking at him with deceptively innocent eyes. “ _Won’t fry my hair and make it all frizzy.”_ The overly chipper employee had chosen that moment to jump in, listing off the benefits of keratin and how this one came with a detachable head just for diffusing while Steve grumbled under his breath that he liked Bucky’s frizzy morning hair. But Bucky had asked and batted those long eyelashes at him and Steve was sliding a grey plastic card across the counter to the employee with big blonde curls and glasses and a nametag reading _Rachel- Store Manager_ with a smiley face sticker in the corner.

They’d gone for cream sodas, after that, kicking each other’s feet under the diner booth table and sharing one orange soda even though Steve hated orange and had already offered to buy Bucky his own. Sharing, apparently, was more romantic, so Steve had choked down the orange concoction and kissed the taste off Bucky’s lips in the backseat of the taxi.

“Hey, you alright?” Cool metal fingers pushed his hair away from his forehead, Bucky’s weight sinking comfortably into the mattress next to him, bundled in his favorite Sherpa robe, and Steve realized he was still frozen across the bed, spread out across Bucky’s side because he insisted on the chargers being on his side. “You’re a million miles away, pal.”

Steve blinked and tilted his head to look up at his partner; Buck’s hair really was pretty, hanging in shiny waves to his chin, the sweetest mix of maple and burgundy and chocolate strands Steve had ever seen. He’d been keeping his facial hair neatly trimmed, just the lightest amount of scruff bleeding down his neck and jaw, perfectly framing those full, pouty lips Steve had been drawing since he was fourteen and could never get quite right. His eyes were so clear now, bright grey-blue and piercing enough to make Steve’s breath catch every time they looked at each other; the dark circles that had plagued him before Wakanda had vanished, leaving behind just soft, smooth skin kept up by the hundreds of creams and cleansers littering their bathroom counter.

“M’alright,” he mumbled when it became apparent Bucky wanted an answer. He combed his fingers through Steve’s hair some more, rubbing a metal thumb at the grey trying so desperately trying to peek through the honey blonde at his temples. “Just love you.”

Bucky’s face softened and he leaned down to kiss the top of Steve’s head, his body dewy and shower-warmed.

“Love you more, punk,” he mumbled and Steve just hummed contently. He closed his eyes and buried his face in the soft skin of Bucky’s thigh, inhaling the scent of the matching cucumber body wash, exfoliator, and lotion set Bucky’d been drooling over from Lush before Steve caved and bought the whole damn line. Anything to see that wide, eye-crinkling smile spread across his best guys face.

Steve grunted in protest when Bucky patted his head and stood, deciding the scalp massage he was so generously giving was over.

“Sorry, honey,” Bucky cooed, not sounding sorry at all as he padded to the walk-in closet. “I’ve got an appointment with Ashley in an hour.”

Ashley, right. It was Thursday, meaning an hour long appointment with Bucky’s therapist and then another appointment with his psychiatrist shortly after.

“Need me to drive you?” Steve asked, dropping his face into the mattress so his voice came out muffled.

“Nah.” He heard Bucky’s robe drop to the floor and couldn’t resist turning his face up to watch the way his muscles corded and bunched underneath all that pretty olive skin. “I think I’m gonna walk today.”

“That’s new,” Steve said, voice a little jarred from the way his cheek was squishing into his mouth from the mattress. He lazily reached out a hand and made grabbing motions until Bucky sighed and slid back to the side of the bed, rolling his eyes while Steve unabashedly groped and squeezed his ass.

“You just came,” he complained as Steve scooted off the mattress just enough to sink his teeth into the pert roundness of one boxer covered cheek.

“I came _once.”_

“I figured that’s all we would have time for,” Bucky grumbled, turning to the side so Steve could bite at his other cheek. “Thought you were gonna go running.”

“Sam cancelled.” _Because it’s Valentine’s day and he didn’t forget like I did._

“Hmm, what an ass. You should stop hanging out with him.”

Steve just rolled his eyes and smacked Bucky’s ass, just a little, before he went to finish getting dressed.

In a pair of sinfully tight jeans that stretched obscenely over the thickness of his thighs and came up just high enough to cover his hips; they hugged the sweet curve of his ass and Steve wanted to bite it again.

“You’re insatiable, Rogers,” Bucky huffed, rolling his eyes as he buttoned a daisy patterned black short sleeved dress shirt that was trying it’s best to contain the bulk of his biceps and chest. He left the top three buttons undone so his chest hair poked out and the dip between his thick pecs was visible. “Looking at me like I’m a piece of meat. What would Sarah say?”

“Can we not talk about my ma when I’ve got your come on my stomach? Thanks, by the way, for helping me clean up.”

Bucky shrugged one shoulder and Steve watched in fascination as the shirt _didn’t_ rip.

“I left the door open,” he said pointedly, digging his favorite rainbow socks out of the drawer and sliding them on before stuffing his feet into a pair of buttery black leather boots, wide and unlaced with yellow laces that matched the center of his daisy’s. “You were the one day dreaming.”

He mumbled incoherently until Bucky smiled and kissed his shoulder.

“I’ll be back later,” he said, swinging on his trench coat. Steve heard the faint clatter of metal and raised an eyebrow until Bucky huffed again and laid three of the six knives Steve knew he was hiding out on the bed.

“Happy?”

“What was our agreement?”

“Fuckin- you’re the worst.” He shrugged the coat off and reached into the small of his back, depositing another knife and a small handgun onto the bed as well. “Asking me to only carry one weapon on me is asking for me to die. Is that what you want, Steve? For me to die?”

“You know it’s not.” Steve stood and smoothed his hands over Bucky’s shoulders, sighing and dipping his fingers into the duel sided breast holster he had somehow crammed under his shirt without him noticing. “One of these days you’re gonna go through a metal detector and get arrested.”

Bucky waggled his metal fingers pointedly while Steve removed the chest holster, taking a second to appreciate the way Bucky’s pecs filled his hands before moving on.

“You’re not telling me Shuri didn’t figure out a way to make that thing undetectable.”

Bucky just grinned and adjusted his shirt back over his shoulders, throwing his coat back on and marching out the door with a pair of over-sized round sunglasses and a kiss on Steve’s cheek.

Steve, who dove back on the bed for his phone and dialed the only person he could think of to help him with this.

  
................................................................................................

“I know it’s short notice. I’m really sorry. You and Tony probably had-,”

“Steve.” Pepper slid a perfectly manicured hand over his arm and squeezed. “Tony and I aren’t doing anything until tonight. And he’s pretty busy trying to get William Shatner to watch our Star Trek marathon with us tonight, so.” She shrugged, knocking her hair behind her shoulder in the breezy New York air.

“I actually know who that is,” Steve said, somewhat surprised. Pepper just smiled. “Star Trek is one of Bucky’s favorites.”

“Maybe a boxed Valentine’s set?”

Steve shook his head and fidgeted with the navy baseball cap on his head.

“I was thinking something more traditional,” he said slowly. “All the stuff we couldn’t have back in the day, ya know? Pamper and spoil him a little.”

Pepper nodded as he spoke, a slow smile spreading across her face.

“You came to the right place,” she sang warmly, looping her arm through his and tugging him down the street. “Mission Spoil Bucky Barnes is a go.”

.....................................................................................................  


In the end, Steve felt like slightly less of an idiot and was thanking every being he could think of that Pepper Potts was in his life. When he got tripped up in the flower shop, fretting between traditional red roses or something big and fluffy like the baskets of enormous hydrangeas, Pepper just patted his shoulder and excused herself to make a call.

“Nat’s picking Bucky up from therapy,” she told him a few minutes later when the vein in his forehead looked ready to pop and the botanist seemed like excited about taking on Captain America’s romantic needs. “She’s taking him to a wine tasting. So we have time.”

“Thank God.”

“Erm, Mr.- uh, Captain Rogers?” the botanist- Carl, his name was- shuffled up to them with a delicate glass vase of soft pink flowers with rows and rows of silky round petals. “This is the camellia. It’s, uh, it comes in red. It signifies a long lasting relationship that- that can, you could say, withstand time? It- I thought they might be appropriate.”

Steve just stood there, trailing his fingers across the petals with his mouth open until Pepper sighed and handed the man a credit card with a brisk, “Load up the car, please.”

After that came the balloons, the hand pulled glass bottles of sparkling bath salts, the thick and decadent caramel and chocolate cheesecake, an entire platter of chocolate covered strawberries, and multiple bottles of champagne.

“Never let it be said that Steve Rogers does anything half-assed,” Pepper said through a panted breath, swiping her bangs out of her eyes and propping her hands on her hips, observing the room setup with pursed lips.

Steve laughed nervously and kept rearranging the flower and balloon combinations, setting everything up just right so the rows of heart shaped balloons framed their California King bed, the flowers filling in the gaps and the last big bouquets sitting on their bedside tables; Pepper helped him string delicate fairy lights across the tufted headboard and get the champagne chilling in an old bucket he found under the kitchen sink.

“I forgot candles,” he gasped, dropping the pillow he was stealing from the couch to make the bed fluffier. Pepper shook her head and scooped the pillow back up, pushing it back into his hands.

“I’ve got it.” She shooed him to the bed and instructed him to keep pillow fluffing while she grab the last string of lights and moved towards their picture window; she closed the black floor length curtains and weaved the lights behind them so they twinkled and wink in the fluttering curtains.

It looked perfect.

“Nat says they’re about ten minutes away,” Pepper said, glancing at her phone. “Are you good you me to head out?”

Steve nodded, still a dumb struck they’d managed to pull all of this together, and brought her in for a tight hug.

“Tell Tony I say hi, yeah?”

“Always.” She kissed his cheek and smiled warmly at him. “Good luck!”

The door clicked shut behind her and Steve tried not to panic as he set everything else up. He was laying the cheesecake and strawberries out on the kitchen table when he heard the tell-tale shuffle of Bucky’s Doc Martens outside the door, hsis low, off-key whistling. Steve swallowed hard and willed his stomach not to fall out his ass.

“Stevie? I’m home,” Bucky called, tossing his keys into the bowl by the door and shucking his long coat and his boots.

“Hey, honey.” Steve stuffed his hands into his pockets and willed himself to move towards the entryway, biting the inside of his cheek. Bucky looked good, his hair piled in a loose, messy bun on top of his head, sunglasses pushed into it, his cheeks pink from the wind outside. He was so beautiful it made Steve’s stomach hurt.

“You look like you’re pinching a turd,” Bucky teased, sliding mismatched arms through Steve’s and resting his chin on Steve’s chest.

“You’re just so pretty.” He wound a loose lock of Bucky’s hair around his index finger and tugged, just a little. Bucky rolled his eyes but his lips twitched towards a smile. “Are you hungry?”

“A little. Tell me you didn’t try to cook.”

“Nah, figured I’d leave that for my pretty little wifey.” He pinched Bucky’s ass and earned a swat to a pecs for his troubles. “Come on.”

He led them into the kitchen, sliding his socks against the hardwood as Bucky’s jaw dropped fractionally, eyes widening as he took everything in.

“Happy Valentine’s?” he said slowly, jamming his thumb between his teeth and biting harshly at the corner of his nail. “This is only- I know we didn’t talk about it. I just wanted- you deserve-,”

Bucky didn’t even turn from gently stroking a metal index finger over a white chocolate drizzled chocolate strawberry to talk.

“Stop biting your fingers, Rogers. Gonna make yourself bleed again. You did this for me?”

“Course I did, Buck.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets to keep from ripping his cuticles off with his teeth. “There’s, uh, there’s more. In the bedroom? And the bathroom, too.”

“Show me.”

Steve was all but vibrating with nervous energy as he watched Bucky shuffle slowly through the bedroom, delicately touching the flowers, swiping up a drop of condensation from the champagne, smoothing his palm across the mattress and bedding. He took even longer in the bathroom, standing in front of the sink and tapping his finger against each lid of salts and soaps; Steve was back to biting his nails before Bucky finally made it back into the bedroom, facing the bed and standing with all the rigid tension of the soldier.

Careful to make his footfalls trackable, Steve made his way across the room to his best guy, swiping the blood beading on his index finger on his jeans, and gently touched Bucky’s shoulder.

“Buck?”

“Remember that time when we were in grade school and had that Valentine’s party?”

“Holly O’Neil put an orange and a whole nickle in your bag. I wanted to punch her lights out.”

“My parents went outta the city that night,” he said slowly, still not turning his head to look at Steve. “We were supposed to babysit Becca. And you- you showed up at my door two hours late with a busted lip. Ripped your shirt and your suspenders and everything.”

Steve nodded, not entirely sure where this was going, and slid his hand from Bucky’s shoulder to the back of his neck, gently rubbing at the tense muscles there.

“But you wouldn’t even let me get mad at ya’. Just grinned, blood all over your teeth, and pulled out a bag ‘a licorice outta your pocket.”

“I had to beg my ma to give me the money for it,” Steve said, smiling and pressing his lips to the warm juncture between Bucky’s neck and shoulder. “The only reason she let me have it was cause I told her it was for you.”

“Do you remember what you told me when we were eatin’ it on the fire escape that night?”

“Probably something stupid.”

Bucky moved under his hands, then, turning to him and tilting his chin so they could make eye contact. Steve’s smile dropped when he saw the faint glimmer of tears gathering in the corner of Bucky’s eyes.

“Buck-,”

“You apologized. Got the shit beat out of you trying to go to the nice part of town, spent all that money your ma saved up for your medicine on licorice- black licorice, which you don’t even like- and you apologized. For not getting me a better present. And you promised you’d give me a real Valentine’s, when your lungs started working and you could get a real job.” His nose wrinkled adorable, lips curling into a wide grin that crinkled the corners of his eyes. “Gave me some shit about deserving the world and how you were gonna fight to make it better.”

“You took me literally,” Steve said, stroking his thumbs along the pretty jut of Bucky’s cheekbones. “Mother henned me until I promised to at least let my bruises heal before getting in another fight.”

“Exactly.” He looked up at Steve with those soft grey eyes, eyes he’d seen cry from laughter and sadness, eyes that had cooled with the Winter Soldier in control and melted on that Quinjet at Steve’s proclamation of the end of the line. “I love you, Stevie.”

“I love you, too, Buck.” He pressed a kiss to the soft spot between Bucky’s eyebrows. “What do you say we pop some champagne and eat strawberries in the tub?”

“Mmm, I think I have a better idea.” Bucky grinned, tugging Steve’s front to his by his belt loops and tugging him down for a hot kiss. He tasted like mint and faint hints of berry wine and it made Steve’s head spin. “Fuck me stupid?”

“You’re already stupid,” Steve grumbled, backing them up to the bed. Bucky bit his lip in retaliation.

“Stupid for marrying you, maybe.”

“Mmm, maybe,” Steve said, crawling up Bucky’s body and framing his head with his hands. “But that’s more of you problem, buddy.”

Bucky just rolled his eyes and tugged him down for another kiss.


End file.
